From Topaz to Psycho: top 52 Hitchcock films

Though Hitchcock never looked back at the musical genre after Waltzes, he kept returning to the concert hall, not least in the famous finale of this, his biggest hit to date. He was thinking through musical ideas and working them into the plot: an assassination is to occur at the cymbal–clashing climax of a cantata at the Royal Albert Hall. Peter Lorre, making his English–language debut, steals the movie as the kidnapper, with shades of his celebrated performance in Fritz Lang's M (1931).Picture: ITV / Rex Features